Channeling French Girl Cool on Broadway: The Story of the Costumes for Tony Favorite An American in Paris

There is a powerful moment in the first act of Christopher Wheeldon’s Tony-nominated reimagining of An American in Paris, when the full dance company converges on stage, postwar customers and shop girls of the city’s iconic Galeries Lafayette. Amid the swirl of perfume bottles and bolts of vendeuse toile, arranged somehow imperceptibly in a row at the proscenium edge, there bursts forth a tableau of models posed down to the gloved fingertip, almost exactly like the iconic John French photograph of Christian Dior’s 1947 New Look collection. That was Mr. Dior’s clarion call to women for a return to beauty and femininity in a beleaguered city aching to rediscover its glory—on Wheeldon’s stage, the sight makes for a message equally as important to the lovelorn characters of this new production, widely considered a top contender for this year’s Best Musical Award.

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Photo: Courtesy of Broadway.com

An American in Paris carries with it a long, beloved history, of course, based on George Gershwin’s work of the same name, and made classic in the Vincente Minelli film version starring Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron. To create his own vision of a liberated Paris, Wheeldon enlisted Broadway veteran Bob Crowley for the sets and costumes to tell the story of Lise, a young dancer played by Leanne Cope, and American GI painter Jerry Mulligan (Robert Fairchild).

Crowley’s efforts this season have garnered an impressive four Tony nominations: two for the set and costume design for An American in Paris, one for the sets in Skylight, and another for the Cheever-esque getups worn by Helen Mirren in The Audience.

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Photo: Courtesy of Broadway.com

It is the idea of the Parisian woman, her confidence and ease in dressing, at that moment in her history that the costume designer so masterfully captures in his clothes, through the sculptured formality of the Dior silhouettes as well as Lise’s swingy skirts and dresses. “They just have it for free and it’s like it’s in the water they drink. I don’t know what it is,” says Crowley, when asked to speculate on just what “it” is about the enviable timeless cool of French style. “We have to work so hard at it, but they don’t.”

For him the true challenge was merging that elusive quality with the choreography of the show. “I can’t remember the last time there was this much ballet on Broadway and I think people are finding it really refreshing,” Crowley says.

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Photo: Courtesy of Broadway.com

To get the right movement in the garment, so necessary for the dancers, Crowley looked to the synthetic fabrics that were just coming out at the time. “There was a lot of rayon. You know, that manmade fabric was coming through from the thirties, and that moves brilliantly as opposed to wool or a serge or tweed or anything like that. So all the fabrics move really, really beautifully.” The way Crowley’s nimble designs flicker on Cope’s birdlike body is a careful study in lightness and freedom, much like the hopes of Paris at the time, which was rediscovering itself after the darkness of the occupation, set to Gershwin’s music, written a full decade before the war.

The collaboration of director and costumer proved a perfect match as well. Wheeldon, a dancer who also choreographed the show, was acutely aware of the way the costumes would function on a dancer’s body, the flourishes and punctuation it can add to the choreography. Says Crowley: “I would show him [Wheeldon] the shapes and I would say, is there enough fabric in this skirt? Can she do everything in this?” Which, of course, is the true test of Parisian style.